Various appliances or other machines, such as a washer or a dryer or other fabric treatment devices or hard surface cleaning devices, for example, can be configured to receive fluids. The fluids can comprise detergents, fabric softeners, bleaches, and/or fragrances, for example. In other various embodiments, any other suitable type of fluid can be provided to the various appliances or other machines.
The appliances or machines can use the fluids in various operating cycles. In various embodiments, these fluids can be manually inserted into portions of the appliances or machines, for example such as a fluid container or manually poured into a receiving area or into the fabric treatment area (such as the washing basin). Known devices for supplying a fluid for appliances include those disclosed in: US Patent Pub. 2006/0272359 to Je Nam King; U.S. Pat. No. 4,883,203 to Peter Kisscher; U.S. Pat. No. 5,007,559 to Cecil B. Young; and U.S. Pat. No. 3,207,373 to Dannenmann.
Despite these and other attempts to provide containers for fluid for use in these appliances, there remains a need for a device which is user friendly yet decreases the potential for user error and is more space efficient. Further, as devices become more complex the types of fluids and compositions supplied to the appliance and/or machine becomes important as the wrong fluid or wrong performance setting can cause performance deterioration as well as improper distribution if the device is designed for a specific type of fluid. As such, there is a need for an apparatus for dispensing fluids which is easy to use, user safe, decreases the likelihood for spillage and leakage, and can be configured to accommodate specific cartridges for use therein.